Airporter firm may rev up service again

Richard MacDougall , owner of RLM Airport Transit & Tours, is looking to restart its service on a limited basis after shutting down last month. (ERIC WYNNE / Staff)

The company that previously ran the Airporter bus link to Halifax Stanfield International Airport is looking to restart the service, albeit in a limited form.

Saying the service was unprofitable, RLM Airport Transit & Tours Inc. shut down the service on Oct. 15. It picked up passengers at most major downtown

hotels. Twenty full-time and part-time employees lost their jobs.

A day later, the company submitted an application with the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board to amend its motor carrier licence to allow “speciality, irregular, restricted-area” public passenger service that would run between hotels and the airport “one way or the reverse thereof.”

Richard MacDougall, owner of RLM, declined Friday to comment on the application.

“I don’t really want to get into that right now because now I’m dealing with the labour boards and everything else and trying to do my financials with Revenue Canada and right now I don’t want to go into this at all,” he said.

“The applications are there, they’re available to the public, but other than that I’m not going any further into it until I have the hearing with the board.”

When he ended the airport service in October, MacDougall said he operated it for months without a contract after taking over from a previous operator that went bankrupt.

On May 31, Metro Transit launched a bus service between the airport and downtown Dartmouth, with a stop in Fall River, which MacDougall also cited as a factor in his decision to shut down the airport portion of his business.

However, RLM has continued to run a charter service, which it wants to expand.

The review board application also seeks to allow the company to carry any organized group by charter arrangement from any two points within Nova Scotia, one way or return.

At the moment, their licence restricts their charter service between any point in the Halifax Regional Municipality to points within the province.